What is ordering of server names in Connection dialog -> Server Name dropbox based on? The order on the screenshot below seems to make no sense.

Sat Dec 05, 2015 11:20 am

SysOpSite Admin

Joined: 26 Nov 2006Posts: 6608

They are listed in the order of their appearance in DB Connections settings in the Options dialog. You can change that order in the Options using drag and drop method or Arrow Up and Down toolbar button at the top of the list.

Please note that connections always being added in the Options to the end of the DB Connections list.

Sun Dec 06, 2015 6:51 pm

gemisigo

Joined: 11 Mar 2010Posts: 1438

SysOp wrote:

They are listed in the order of their appearance in DB Connections settings in the Options dialog.

I checked that, thanks for the hint. This below is the order in DB Connections settings. There are some items that I had to hide in the first screenshot in my previous post, but the rest is there and it looks like the order is reversed. It feels a bit unnatural.

Sun Dec 06, 2015 7:51 pm

SysOpSite Admin

Joined: 26 Nov 2006Posts: 6608

That could be a very crude attempt to implement MRU. I guess it tries to treat that list as a historical usage list, and then show that in a reverse order, kind of show most recently used first.

Mon Dec 07, 2015 2:07 am

gemisigo

Joined: 11 Mar 2010Posts: 1438

Aha, I see, and that's implemented by putting new connections always being added in the Options to the end of the DB Connections list. That makes sense. But I think it a bit unintuitive that to achieve an alphabetic order in the combobox, I have to manually reorder the items in DB Connections settings. A bit counterproductive as well, to put the new connection at the end of the list. This way one has to scroll all the way down to find the new ones.

May I suggest a series of improvements on this one?

#1. An option that enforces maintaining alphabetic order. Turning it on would reorder the list and it could automatically turn off when the list is manually reordered.
#2. In case the alphabetic order is not turned on, putting new could end up at the top of the list. This way you wouldn't have to reverse order in combobox, and the rest of the list would still be ordered as previously.
#3. Implementing an actual counter for usage frequency and reorder list based on that.

I guess these could prove very useful when handling dozens of servers.

Mon Dec 07, 2015 3:49 am

michalk

Joined: 29 Aug 2014Posts: 167

hi guys, sorry to hijacking this thread, but I have question related to the same part of SA.
Is it possible to consider using aliases as main part of names in ODBC connection window? Currently server address is shown as main, alias is appended to it. It could be ok for IP addresses but for (longer) domain addresses aliases are still trimmed.
On the other hand aliases are defined for good reason, aren't they? Even in DB connection editor, the list contains them, not addresses. Aliases are simply more intuitive than addresses that's why I would like to see them in odbc connection selector.

with regards

Mon Dec 07, 2015 1:19 pm

SysOpSite Admin

Joined: 26 Nov 2006Posts: 6608

If I understand you correctly by ODBC connection server aliases you mean ODBC profile names (also known as DNS names). Am I correct?

If yes, SQL Assistant supports both DNS based and DNS-less connections. By default it attempts DNS-less connections which are simpler to manage as they don't require users to configure and maintain ODBC profiles. But if you want to use them, on the Connect dialog, click the Options >> button. In the Connection Type select ODBC, and then in the DSN/Driver list select the required ODBC entry that starts with DSN=, for example DSN=TOOLSDB. If you choose to use ODBC profiles, be sure you refer to profiles created using ODBC 32-bit Administrator utility and not 64-bit. More information on this subject can be found in SQL Assistant User's Guide.

If No, and I misunderstood your question, please attach an image demonstrating the issue.

Tue Dec 08, 2015 12:23 am

michalk

Joined: 29 Aug 2014Posts: 167

No, I meant something else. I mean 'alias' as name of db connection entry in SA
Please refer "Connect to SQL server" screenshot from gemisigo.
As you can see, combo-box contains servers names formatted as of: address (alias)
What I'm asking for is changing this scheme to: alias (address).
And to be honest, since alias is enough, I would remove address from this list too.

Tue Dec 08, 2015 4:58 am

gemisigo

Joined: 11 Mar 2010Posts: 1438

That's a good idea.

Tue Dec 08, 2015 7:53 am

SysOpSite Admin

Joined: 26 Nov 2006Posts: 6608

That "alias" is indeed an ODBC profile name in case of DSN based ODBC connection. SQL Assistant supports multiple connection methods. ODBC is just one of them. To the best of my knowledge ADO.NET is the most common (there is no profile name, just server), followed by ODBC, MySQL Native and OCI, with Access and SQLite trailing that list. In case of ODBC, most connections are DNS-less so there is no ODBC profile name used or visible in the connection name. In case of Oracle OCI, it shows TNS Name.

The default name is constructed in the following format
[server type icon] [server name] ([connection method:specifics])

But here is the good part. The connection names can be changed What you see on the screenshot are default system generated names. If you want to change them, open the Options dialog, go to DB Options, then DB Connections. Rename name as you wish. That simple. Hope it works for you.

Wed Dec 09, 2015 10:53 am

michalk

Joined: 29 Aug 2014Posts: 167

SOrry to say, you are still missing the point. We can change the name in DB Connections (name I call alias). We do that indeed.
But in connection window, in Server Name combo-box I can still see Server Name followed by the alias. If Server name is long enough, I cannot even see the alias.
Moreover after selecting an item from this combobox, only Server name stays visible (The alias turns hidden).

Please check screenshots bellow.
I would like to work only with alias which is presented by "My test connection" string in the example

Thu Dec 10, 2015 6:11 am

SysOpSite Admin

Joined: 26 Nov 2006Posts: 6608

Thank you very much for the screenshots. Now I see what you mean. I checked and it appears that kind of change would be a difficult and not backward compatible change if parts of the server name string are switched. The existing connection functions do parse what's in the server name and extract the text that goes before "(" if there is a one, or grab the entire name if there isn't. That part is matched to db server name, or DSN name, or file name, or TNS name depending on the connection type and method.

Or can submit an enhancement request, may be it can be picked for the next major version.